Indigenous Health Incentive (IHI) practice application for Practice Incentives Program (PIP) 012-10070000

The PIP IHI supports general practices and Indigenous health services to provide better health care to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander patients, including best practice management of chronic conditions and mental disorders.

Practices can apply for the PIP Indigenous Health Incentive:

• electronically via Health Professional Online Services (HPOS) in PIP Online, or
• by completing the relevant sections of the Practice Incentives Program Application (IP001) form at the time the practice is applying for PIP, or
• manually by completing the Practice Incentives Indigenous Health Incentives practice application (IP026) form if the practice is already registered for PIP

Do not accept applications submitted via letter.

To register for the IHI, a practice must:

• be approved for the PIP
• undertake the provision of care to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander patients with a chronic disease or mental disorder
• establish a follow-up mechanism for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander patients to encourage patients to return to the practice for ongoing care
• meet the cultural awareness training requirements

The Resources page links to the IHI guidelines for more details about eligibility requirements.

There are 2 types of PIP IHI payments:

• One-off practice sign-on payment to register for the PIP IHI
• Tiered outcome payments:
• Tier 1, for providing chronic condition and mental health management within a 12-month assessment period
• Tier 2, for providing a target level of patient care within a 12-month assessment period

Until 2024, a patient registration payment was made to practices for the annual registration of eligible patients. This payment ceased on 1 November 2024 with the introduction of lifetime registration on 1 January 2025.

The IHI Guidelines have more information about how the outcome payments are calculated. The Resources page has a link to the guidelines.

See IHI patient registration and withdrawal for the PIP for information about IHI patient registration.

Practices can withdraw from the IHI through:

• HPOS, or
• written correspondence via letter or HPOS messaging

The request must include the:

• practice ID
• practice name
• full practice address
• consent to withdraw from the IHI, and
• signature of one registered owner or authorised contact person

Note: HPOS messages sent from a practice owner or authorised contact person's RA number should be considered as ‘signed’ by the practice owner. See Online Services for PIP and WIP - Practice Stream for information on how to check an RA number.

Practices can reapply at any time.

Practices reapplying for the IHI within 12 months of their withdrawal are not eligible for the sign-on payment.

In some cases where information is missing or possibly incorrect on a form or correspondence, services officers can call the practice to obtain or verify the details verbally.

For more information on:

• details that can be obtained verbally, see Table 3 on the Resources page in Forms for Practice Incentives Program (PIP) and Workforce Incentive Program (WIP) - Practice Stream
• authenticating a customer and documenting call information, see Enquiry management for PIP and WIP - Practice Stream
• adding a profile comment, see Associated documents and comments for PIP and WIP - Practice Stream